Shopping Within Your Watershed

NTodd and I discuss the importance of Buy Nothing Day.


Photo by the author. A lake in Vermont near NTodd's and Ericka's cabin.

Only Ground

At our recent planning meeting, I agreed to put together some information for my wonderful circle of amazing women on grounding. So I've been thinking quite a bit, lately about grounding.

I had some difficult medical tests to get through this week (all turned out v, v well) and, throughout the procedure, I was worried, uncomfortable, angry, scared. What I kept doing, over and over throughout each step of the procedure, was to ground. The first reason was because, that was about as much magic as I could muster under those circumstances and the second reason was because, grounding works. It reminds me, on a cellular level, that I'm going to be OK, no matter what happens. And that, of course, allows me to respond as a witch, to realize that there's room for me to choose how to respond to, handle, create new possibilities within, change consciousness at will in response to whatever the medical procedure entails, discovers, produces. As Mary Oliver said in her lovely poem about corn growing:

let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt

swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?

One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body
is sure to be there.

That's what grounding does for me.

The first several hundred times that I grounded, I would say to myself, "I'm not really grounding. I don't really have roots that can grow into the ground and hold me to Mother Earth. I'm just imagining, no, I'm just pretending. This isn't witchcraft. I'm not a real witch. This can't be what they're talking about. I must be doing it wrong. I'm not a good witch; I don't know what I'm doing; this is messed up. I should stop. I should stop doing it wrong and figure out how to do it right, find a good teacher, regroup, stop."

But I would just keep on "acting as if." "Acting as if" is highly magical technique. I didn't know that, then, but I know it now. I would just keep acting as if I really did have roots, they really did grow into the ground and spread out, anchoring me. As if I really did absorb strength from the Earth through my roots, as if I really could breathe out toxins and tensions and troubles through my roots into the Earth where they could be transformed. As if I really did have branches that reached up into the night skies, towards the moon, into the stars, absorbing energy from those sources. As if I really were, really, at the center of the crossroads of all possibilities.

And, wherever you go (and go, and go, and go), there you are.

Only ground.

Picture found here.

Helpless Heart

All I Want For Yule Is . . . .

How on Earth did no one think of this before?

Hat tip: Esoteric Book Review

(You have to click the link for Tarot and then select Transparent Tarot.)


Image found here.

How To Behave In A Crisis

Byron Ballard has a brilliant article up at Witchvox about what to do in extremis:

Go outside and activate the spirits of the land on which you live. This can happen in a backyard, in a woodland temple, on the balcony of your high-rise apartment. Feed them (I give mine milk, corn liquor, cheap bright candy) and honor them and talk to them. And it’s best to do this when you aren’t in a crisis, so that they know you. It is always a good idea to build a relationship before you go asking for favors, don‘t you think? Ask the spirit of that maple tree, or that rock or that hill to be with you in your hour of need. Ask them to guide and inspire you, to support you and to be your friend on the other plane.

Then come inside and clean off your home altar, the primary one. Dust the table, put on a clean cloth, make an effort to set up this beautiful focal point, , this place between the worlds where you will petition the gods. Burn some incense, add some flowers, whatever you do to make it fresh. My advice is to work directly with your own gods, the ones you honor all the time. If you are dedicated to Artemis, ask her to stand with you, to show you what you need to see. You don’t need to go to Brigid for healing if you don’t have a relationship with her. Go first to your matrons, tell them the story, ask for help, ask for blessings.

Next, set up an Ancestor altar and actively engage your Ancestors. Your actual Ancestors--your mom or great-uncle or your older sister who died when you were ten. Feed them, honor them and be very clear about how important they are to you and how much you need their help.

Now look at your life--what do you need? To banish something? To call something to you? Do you need to stand under a full moon and say the most important prayer--“thank you”? If you need to create a ritual of thanksgiving, then do it. Make it pure and simple. Get a babysitter, if you need to. Fling yourself before your altar, if that feels right.

Does your need require a spell? Then do one. Don’t spend days researching the books of spells or Google-ing your request. Just do it. Make it up as you go along. Check the phase of the moon, and out of your need and your love, create a spell and do it. Raise a circle of pure energy and do it.

Do all these things and do them all again, if need be. Clarify your need and request for yourself and for your helpers both seen and unseen. And if nothing changes, consult an astrologer, get a tarot or rune reading, and try to figure out why this is happening to you now. Why again? Is there a lesson you need to be heeding? Are you facing the same challenges again and again? Why? What lesson are you not learning? And why not?

Many books have been written about daily spiritual practice, most of it from the Christian traditions. When tragedy--or merely drama--strikes, they have recourse to heavy-duty praying, just as we do. But if they--and we--have cultivated a clear series of steps to get grounded and feel our connection to the Divines, it can make those scary times a little less stressful..

Start the morning by grounding yourself and finish your day by looking at the moon and saying your prayers. There is comfort there and connection.

It's All Just God Pouring God Into God

One of the things that I do consciously try to do is to help G/Son to appreciate nature. We went to a nearby nature center this weekend and it was nice: a little place in the woods with shells and animal bones and rocks and plants. Outside was a huge banner of the Earth and G/Son surprised me by pointing to it across the meadow and saying, "Look, Nonna! It's the Earth!"

But the most magical thing of all happened when we were leaving, just at dusk when the center closed and we started up the winding walk through the woods to our car. I could hear the rustling in the forest next to the road and stopped to look carefully, reaching for G/Son's hand in case what I heard was a buck about to come angrily out of the woods. But it wasn't. It was a lovely, graceful doe, white-tailed and grave, who came to the edge of her wood to stare at us across the three or four feet of road. I know: we're supposed to consider them pests and tick-carriers and blah blah blah. I love them. I can go years and not see one, but the times in my life when I've really needed reassurance about something important, they show up.

I became completely still and whispered, "Look, G/Son. A deer." We'd just seen pictures of deer inside the nature center and, when he turned, I think that's kind of what he was expecting to see, but he saw her, almost one with the dusk and the forest full of doe-colored leaves. He became completely still, too, expect for his eyes, which grew as wide as saucers. And then he whispered something to the deer that he's heard me whisper to squirrels and birds and butterflies: "I would never hurt you." And it had the same effect upon her that it often has on animals. She remained where she stood and simply watched us.

After a few minutes, we began to walk back up the path, still holding mittened hands and not speaking. She moved across the road, through the meadow on our side, and into the woods that border the meadow. When we got to our car, G/Son said to me, "That was Bambi. For real."

And this morning, he helped Son rake leaves.

Grounding

You know those great science fiction stories where a culture in the future has founded an entire way of life around some random quote left over from present times? Where "eorge ashington" is all they know about leadership or "Have a Coke and a Smile" leads to intense theological debate concerning what the ancients meant by "Have a Coke"? Where a garbled version of the Pledge of Allegiance is a sacred text?

I sometimes wonder which words, if I had to choose, as a witch, I'd leave for some oddly witch-deprived world of the future to discover. I generally wind up unable to choose between "All acts of love and pleasure are rituals of the Goddess," and "The Goddess is alive. Magic is afoot!" Both seem, to me, to encapsulate so much of what's good and right about Wicca. I do know, though, (yes, I spend a lot of time on such silly thoughts) what one skill I'd teach if I were the last witch left and not left for long, at that. I'd teach Grounding.

IMHO, if you can ground, you're a witch and you'll probably eventually get all the rest on your own, anyway. (OK, and -- "don't light a lot of candles when wearing flowing robes," "spend some time every day outside," "when you forget your well-written incantation, just make it up, it will probably be better anyway," "you don't REALLY need an athame," "witch wars are not worth it," "handle wolfsbane and thorn apple with gloves, really," and "when you meet Great Lady Artemis Raven Moonflower along the path, kill the Great Lady" -- those are good, too.)

Grounding is the basis, for me, of all magical practice and if all that you have time to do is to ground, I still think that you can say you've engaged in daily practice. Similarly, I'm v hard pressed to think of any situation in which grounding isn't the first thing you should do, the most effective magical spell that you can cast, the best and most effective way to be a witch in whatever situation you face.

More here, here, and here.

Beyond that, there's the Ha Prayer or some form of breath work, and there's building a personal place of power where you can go to work magic, find answers, gather strength. But, trust me, only ground and the rest will come. Even if you never have a small, ancient jar full of ground-up High John the Conqueror's root tucked in the hidden compartment of an ash broom carved w interesting runes. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Why This Culture Is Doomed (Or Should Be)

It doesn't get any better when they get older; in fact, it gets worse. Twisty, of course, is on it:

Bayer’s new Teen Advantage pill focuses on the “top health concerns of moms and teens” (dads, it is well documented, are oblivious to their children’s health; their top health concern is erectile dysfunction). The “For Him” vitamins address the critical dude issue of “healthy muscle function.” Girl-teen vitamins, on the other hand, are primarily concerned with “healthy skin.”

Seriously. This shit just writes itself.

So I don’t need to spell out the multi-faceted celebration of patriarchal ideology, binary genderism, and sexist bullshit encrapsulated by this asinine product. Hey, Bayer Product Development Guy! The 50’s called, and they want their male chauvinist pig jibbajabba back!

If, back when I was still a captive rebelling against the stifling stewardship of my nuclear family, my mother had induced me to take dork-ass pills called “Teen Advantage,” I would have written 8 pages in my journal about her smothering suburban uncoolness and how I couldn’t wait until I was 18, whereupon I would move to Manhattan, wear black, and become a fixture at the most prestigious literary salons.

Le Beaujolais Nouveau Est Arrive!

The harvest, which that lasted nearly a month, beginning as it did on 15th September, was blessed with ideal weather. With hardly a drop of rain in September the crisp sunny weather meant that the grapes ripened evenly and steadily and that, health-wise, a good balance was reached. This allowed the vine growers to leave the grapes on the vine a few days longer and make the most of the excellent weather.

As far as volume is concerned, the yield in 2008 is particularly low, throughout the vine growing area. The yield could even be the lowest in Beaujolais since 1975, if the forecasts are confirmed: under 800 000 hl, where the average is 1 000 000 hl. This, in addition to the weather during the harvest, guarantees certain quality and has led professionals to state that “all the conditions for a successful vintage are combined”.

In the cellars, where fermentation has started, the primary juice augurs really aromatic wines, with a marked domination of fruit. Small red fruit, including the raspberry and black currant that are classics for the Gamay Noir à Jus Blanc grape variety, from which all red Beaujolais is made, will be present this year, together with notes of vine peach in a lovely palette of exuberant, lip-smacking aromas and flavours.

To the eye, the robes are shining ruby red. On the palate, the vintage will tend towards the fruit, with freshness and supple tannins that are the fortunate result of the sunshine in September making the wines beautifully round.

Because of the unruly weather, 2008 may globally be seen as a “winemaker’s vintage”. This year has required know-how and vigilance to keep the vines on track and create delectable wines, whose qualities will open out over the coming weeks.




More here.

Calm Down

Abortion

Since the election, I've been discussing abortion w friends at work who are very anti-abortion, and my v creative friend K and I were talking about it tonight. I seriously disagree with some of this Catholic's points. (Back off my Constitution, you woman-hating creep.) But he does make some worthwhile points.

Years and years of trying to criminalize abortions and of turning the catholic church into the church of "please elect a republican" (who among us can forget the catholic church doing everything possible to steal the election away from John Catholic Kerry and to give it to George the Torturing Warmonger Bush? Nicely done, bishops. You must be so proud.) have failed to stop women from getting abortions. So if your REAL goal were to prevent abortions (and I don't think that is the real goal of many who want to criminalize abortion, but, again, another story for another day), now would be a great time to stop and try to re-think your methods.

Here are the facts:

Criminalizing abortion doesn't stop abortion. We know that this is true because, back in the bad old days when abortion was criminalized, women still had abortions. They had them in back alleys from hacks who butchered them and left them to bleed to death, but they still had them. Abortion has been around for centuries and centuries. Before abortion was available, people exposed unwanted children. There's a long-standing human need to control family size and it's not going away any time soon, laws or no laws. And, even those who advocate criminalizing abortion can't explain exactly how they'd punish women who seek abortions. If it's murder, would you execute the woman? Leave her other children orphans? Only penalize the doctor? Even if she saved the woman's life? WTF? (One suspects these "pro-life" sorts would gladly execute the woman, but don't think that notion is too marketable, "yet." First they'll criminalize abortion and then they'll introduce stoning and burning at the stake. Cuz they're "pro-life.")

Countries in South America with stringent laws criminalizing abortion have high rates of abortion and countries in Scandinavia with liberal abortion laws have low rates of abortion. Abortions were down under Bill Clinton, who was pro-choice, are up under Bush, who says that he opposes abortion. The conclusion is obvious and inescapable: Criminalizing abortion -- the primary goal of the catholic church and of the past several decades of the "pro-life" movement -- doesn't and wouldn't prevent abortion.

You might want to just sit with that thought for a few minutes.

There are things that have been empirically shown to reduce abortions. Sadly, for the catholics and other wingnuts, those things also empower women and reduce unplanned pregnancies (which lead to abortion), and they can't get behind either of those outcomes.

Teaching girls to read, write, do math, do science, understand history, and run small businesses -- dollars spent on educating girls -- empowers women, and reduces unplanned pregnancies and, thus, abortion. Check out any developing nation or American inner city and you'll see that this is true.

Real sex education, not bullshit "abstinence education," empowers women and reduces unplanned pregnancies and, thus, abortion.

Opportunities for women to advance in the work world empower women and reduce unplanned pregnancies and, thus, abortion.

Enforcement of child support laws, provision of affordable, effective and safe birth control, provision of good, affordable day care, provision of medical care for pregnant women and infants, jobs with equal pay: all of these have been shown to decrease abortion.

And, yet, for over a generation, the catholic church and the "pro-life" movement have focused relentlessly on criminalizing abortion. When someone consistently works towards an ends shown not to be associated with his asserted goal and consistently refuses to support those things shown to be associated with his asserted goal, it causes me to question that person's true goal. But that's another story for another day.

If I were concerned with preventing abortions, I think that the last 8 years and this election would be a wake-up call for me.

Even in wingnut South Dakota, anti-abortion ballot measures fail. Your vaunted "state's rights" arguments -- last used by those who wanted to be able to discriminate against African Americans in their own states when they realized they were losing the national debate on that issue (nice company, bishops; you must be so proud!) -- won't save you. Obama's going to pick the next 2 to 4 SCOTUS Justices and they're not going to criminalize abortion. Several generations have grown up accepting that women have a right to terminate pregnancies when they choose. Even when Republicans control the WH, the Congress, SCOTUS, and the media, (and it's going to be years and years and millions of abortions before they ever do again; go look at who's up for re-election in 2010 and 2012) they don't criminalize abortion. They just save the issue to use to make a bunch of fools donate and vote for them every two years. That's all. They use the fundies like the gullible fools they are.

It turns out that you can't have both. You can either decrease abortions -- your stated goal -- and increase women's power and control over their own sexuality, or you can continue to try to control women's sexualiy while fetus after fetus bites the dust.

As the wonderful psychiatrist in my favorite episode of the Sopranos told Carmella, at least you can never say that no one told you.

What Did You Do This Weekend?

Winter's Coming

Make soup

Knit mittens

Burn logs and incense in the fireplace

Put socks on your feet

Brew a cup of tea

Plan your spring garden

Picture found here.

My New Name For A Blog

What NTodd Said.

Also, of course, What the Snake Goddess Said.

My New Name For A Blog

What the Kenosha Kid Said:

Ban Heterosexual Marriage

SECTION I. Title
This measure shall be known and may be cited as the "California Marriage Destruction Act."

SECTION 2. Article I. Section 7.5 is added to the California Constitution. to read:
Sec. 7.5. No marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

In order to qualify for the ballot, the marriage definition measure needed 694,354 valid petition signatures, which is equal to 8% of the total votes cast for governor in the November 2006 General Election.


Start collecting those signatures!

Sunday Trakl Blogging

Grodek

At evening the woods of autumn are full of the sound
Of the weapons of death, golden fields
And blue lakes, over which the darkening sun
Rolls down; night gathers on
Dying recruits, the animal cries
Of their burst mouths.
Yet a red cloud, in which a furious god,
The spilled blood itself, has its home, silently
Gathers, a moonlike coolness in the willow bottoms;
All the roads spread out into the black mold.
Under the gold branches of the night and stars
The sister’s shadow falters through the diminishing
grove,
To greet the ghosts of the heroes, bleeding heads;
And from the reeds the sound of the dark flutes of
autumn rises.
O prouder grief! you bronze altars,
The hot flame of the spirit is fed today by a more
monstrous pain,
The unborn grandchildren.

Translated by James Wright and Robert Bly

Wikipedia tells us that: On the outbreak of World War I, Trakl [trained in his youth as a pharmacist] was sent as a medical official to attend to soldiers in Galicia (comprising portions of modern-day Ukraine and Poland). Trakl suffered frequent bouts of depression, exacerbated by the horror of caring for severely wounded soldiers. During one such incident in Grodek, Trakl had to steward the recovery of some ninety soldiers wounded in the fierce campaign against the Russians. He tried to shoot himself from the strain, but his comrades prevented him. Hospitalized in Krakow and placed under close observation, Trakl lapsed into deeper depression and wrote to [a friend] for advice. [The friend[ convinced him to contact Wittgenstein. Upon receiving Trakl's note, Wittgenstein went to the hospital, but found that Trakl had committed suicide from an overdose of cocaine three days before.

Photo found here.

Just Because

Support Our Troops!

I went down to the National Gallery of Art early on this rainy Saturday morning to see the Oceans, Rivers, and Skies exhibit. Parked near the National Archives building and was amazed to see a huge banner that said, Defend Our Constitution Arrest Bush and Cheney War Criminals. Sadly, I had only my iPhone camera, so the pictures really don't do the banner justice.

Closer inspection revealed a number of folks up on the scaffolding and a group of men on the ground holding a flag that said, Veterans for Peace. The guys on the ground were really friendly, pointing out each of their comrades up on the scaffolding (who'd climbed up in the rain and fog to hang the banner) and noting in which war each had fought. While we were chatting, a guy walked by with his dog and asked, "How'd you get a permit to hang that?" One of the vets told him, "Oh, we've got a piece of paper that says we can hang it. It's inside and you can go see it when they open up. It's called the Constitution of the United States."

I asked them what they planned to do when they were ordered to take the banner down. They smiled and noted how slippery and wet the scaffolding was and said that they doubted any DC policemen would be willing to climb up there to cut it down. I noted a guard at the DoJ standing and smiling. Soon, the guard from inside the Archives came out, put up a sign about the exhibits inside, and walked away without a word. As I was leaving, a motorcade, including an ambulance, drove past. I sure do hope it was Cheney's.

The Veterans for Peace literature that they gave me says:

Members of Veterans for Peace (VFP) chose the Archives for their nonviolent protest because it is symbolic of their military oath th "defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." In September they occupied the Archives for 24 hours and plan to stay longer this time.

. . .

The veterans are demanding [that the] Bush administration be tried for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against peace; asking the media to clearly inform the public of the administrations crimes, and encouraging citizens to take similar nonviolent actions

Here are the patriots who, once again, put their bodies on the line for the rule of law:


On the scaffold:

Elliott Adams, 61, former Army paratrooper, Viet Nam
Ellen Barfield, 52, former Army Sgt.
Kim Carlyle, 61, former Army Spec 5
Doug Zachary, 58, former USMC Lance Cpl.
Tarak Kauff, 67, former PFC, Army Airborne
Will Covert, 63, former E4 Navy
Elaine Brower, 54, mother of USMC Sgt. James Brower, on his third tour in Iraq
Matthis Chiroux, 24, Army Sergant, Served in Afghanistan, refused deployment to Iraq

Providing support on the ground:

Mike Ferner, 57, former Navy corpsman
Michelle White, 24, wife of Iraq war vet currently serving in Afghanistan
Michael Marceau, 58 former Army, Viet Nam
Bruce Berry, 62, former SPC 4 Army, Viet Nam
Fred Nagel, 65, former SPC 4 Army
Jay Wenk, 82, former rifleman, 90th Infantry Div. WWII
Anthony Teolis, 42, US Army Field Artillery, Gulf War

Founded in 1985, Veterans for Peace has 120 chapters throughout the country and has actively protested the Afghanistan and Iraq wars since their inception Membership includes men and women veterans of all eras and duty stations, spanning the Spanish Civil War, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. VFP is an official Non Governmental Organization (NGO) represented at the UN. [More here.]

Military Families Speak Out is an organization of people opposed to the war in Iraq who have relatives or loved ones currently in the military or in the military since the fall of 2002.

Thank you, guys.

Everything I Know About Magic

In the end, it's bodies. It's women's bodies, turned to the service of magic. Magic in service to the city. In the end, it's a city of marble and of water dancing through fountains, a city perched on the edge of the beautiful, winding Potomac River.

In the end, it's bodies. It's women's bodies, bodies both grounded and skied, bodies inside a circle cast by a woman, in her woman's body, blocks from a capitol like a wedding cake, an obelisk, a reflecting pool.

In the end, it's bodies. It's women's bodies, bodies in need of magic, in need of broth, in need of blankets, in need of warmth, in need of a safe place to stay in a city of marble and water and fountains and wedding cakes and obelisks and monuments of marble.

In the end, it's bodies. It's women's bodies. In the end, it's women's bodies.

Photo found here.

Each One Pull One by Alice Walker

EACH ONE, PULL ONE


(Thinking of Lorraine Hansberry)

We must say it all, and as clearly
Trying to bury us.
As we can. For, even before we are dead,


Were we black? Were we women? Were we gay?
Were we the wrong shade of black? Were we yellow?
Did we, God forbid, love the wrong person, country?
Or politics? Were we Agnes Smedley or John Brown?


But, most of all, did we write exactly what we saw,
As clearly as we could? Were we unsophisticated
Enough to cry and scream?


Well, then, they will fill our eyes,
Our ears, our noses and our mouths
With the mud
Of oblivion. They will chew up
Our fingers in the night. They will pick
Their teeth with our pens. They will sabotage
Both our children
And our art.


Because when we show what we see,
They will discern the inevitable:
We do not worship them.


We do not worship them.
We do not worship what they have made.
We do not trust them.


We do not believe what they say.
We do not love their efficiency.
Or their power plants.
We do not love their factories.
Or their smog.
We do not love their television programs.
Or their radioactive leaks.
We find their papers boring.
We do not worship their cars.
We do not worship their blondes.
We do not worship their penises.
We do not think much
Of their Renaissance
We are indifferent to England.
We have grave doubts about their brains.


In short, we who write, paint, sculpt, dance
Or sing
Share the intelligence and thus the fate
Of all our people
In this land.
We are not different from them,
Neither above nor below,
Outside nor inside.
We are the same.
And we do not worship them.


We do not worship them.
We do not worship their movies.
We do not worship their songs.


We do not think their newscasts
Cast the news.
We do not admire their president.
We know why the White House is white.
We do not find their children irresistible;
We do not agree they should inherit the earth.


But lately you have begun to help them
Bury us. You who said: King was just a womanizer;
Malcom, just a thug; Sojourner, folksy; Hansberry,
A traitor (or whore, depending); Fannie Lou Hamer,
merely spunky; Zora Hurston, Nella Larsen, Toomer:
reactionary, brainwashed, spoiled by whitefolks, minor;
Agnes Smedley, a spy.


I look into your eyes;
You are throwing in the dirt.
You, standing in the grave
With me. Stop it!


Each one must pull one.


Look, I, temporarily on the rim
Of the grave,
Have grasped my mother's hand
My father's leg.
There is the hand of Robeson
Langston's thigh
Zora's arm and hair
Your grandfather's lifted chin
And lynched woman's elbow
What you've tried to forget
Of your grandmother's frown.


Each one, pull one back into the sun


We who have stood over
So many graves
Know that no matter what they do
All of us must live
Or none.

/Hat tip rootless e in comments at Eschaton